Interesting article on Keane and his "troubles" at Anfield http://www.independent.ie/sport/soc...-of-politics-and-corporate-doubt-1615566.html Whatever private uncertainties crowd the mind of Steven Gerrard they are clearly not so great they prevent him from confirming -- as thunderously as anyone in the history of the game -- the truth of one the more poignant assertions of the old pros. It is that a football field can sometimes be not an arena but an island -- a place where all the troubles and the confusions of the real world can be set aside, for a glorious interlude of 90 minutes. Diego Maradona, George Best and Paul Gascoigne proclaimed this even as they rummaged in the remnants of their talent. When the brilliant coach, Malcolm Allison, whose life as a player was both complicated and tumultuous, was told that his career was over because of tuberculosis he immediately reflected, "I'll never go out to there to play again, knowing that I'm safe between the touchlines, that nothing can touch me as I do the thing I love most." Distraction In Gerrard's case the requirement is to do rather more than hold back a worrying distraction that will not be resolved until his court appearance in March. It is to prop up, with amazing diligence and force, a football club at times so dysfunctional its close proximity to the Premier League champions and leaders Manchester United, and continued presence in the Champions League and the FA Cup, is beginning to stand logic on its head. Or, at least, that would be so if it was not for Gerrard's extraordinary ability to rise so far above both his own crisis and his club's disarray. Gerrard, with the conspicuous help of the re-emerging Fernando Torres, has become Liverpool these last few weeks, far more, certainly, than the tetchy and eternally self-justifying manager Rafa Benitez and American owners whose attempts to turn a profit on the most successful club in the history of English football are beginning to sound as plaintive as the sales technique of Molly Malone. A harsh verdict on Liverpool's operating technique? This is only, surely, if you can ignore the £20m scandal at the heart of Anfield -- one that at the weekend became something close to a gruesome joke. Robbie Keane's plight is, at the level of professional ambition, nothing less than a personal tragedy. It reached its nadir when he was told that he could no longer claim a place on the bench. Here we had a harsh spotlight indeed on Benitez's fight for a contract that would put him in charge of all transfer dealing. Of course the manager's fight is correct, in both theory and practice, as long as the best tradition of English football is maintained in the working arrangements of men like Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Martin O'Neill. However, Benitez's campaign needs a lot more illumination if it is to gain any credence in the middle of the Keane affair. One strong theory on Merseyside is that the summer preoccupation of Benitez was Gareth Barry and the push to sign Keane was stronger elsewhere -- and not least in the office of the chief executive, Rick Parry. Could this really be so, and if it is, could it possibly condition the appalling treatment of Keane, a player of accomplishment, even over-achievement at Tottenham, who came to Anfield wearing his devotion to the Liverpool cause on his much-travelled sleeve. His short Liverpool history is more than anything a study in humiliation. It's true his early performances, his failure to relate to the game of Torres, sent out an almost instant warning that £20m had been mis-spent. But who was the author of the mistake, and what serious efforts were made to rectify it? Did Keane receive any of the ego massaging that produced superior performance at Tottenham for Martin Jol and Juande Ramos, neither exactly kid-glove specialists? The evidence is to the contrary. Keane has indeed played poorly at times but not with a consistency that would make his relentless fate of substitution seem any less a kind of open-ended grinding down of his spirit. Typically, the Dubliner threw him himself into training yesterday and if sometimes his body language this season has touched, perhaps understandably, a degree of despair -- especially on the loneliest trek in football after your number has been called -- he is at pains to stress that his non-appearance at Anfield on Sunday for the Cup-tie against Everton was at the suggestion of the club. The inference has to be that the Keane situation has become so embarrassing that Liverpool were in no mood to provide gratuitous picture opportunities. A huge part of the problem, no doubt, is that just as Keane and Torres failed to establish a natural rapport, the one struck up between the Spaniard and Gerrard is at times nothing less than sublime. We saw that in Gerrard's equaliser against Everton, a move that carried a beauty and a purpose which was scarcely nullified by the fact that 'keeper Tim Howard should have got down to smother the shot. Keane's agony is Gerrard's glory -- and perhaps, it needs to be said, Benitez's point of redemption in a season so littered with confusion. The Spaniard has never accepted the myth that Gerrard is a great, controlling midfielder, but rather a superbly equipped attacker, almost a force of nature when his power wells up so inexorably as he goes forward, with, for example, the irresistible timing which inspired the breathtaking service from Torres on Sunday. scornfully This is part of the football landscape Robbie Keane is never likely to tread, a point made scornfully by Alex Ferguson when he questioned his £6m move from Wolves to Coventry. Such a judgment, however, was no deterrent to a career which now boasts the distinguished landmarks of Elland Road, San Siro, White Hart Lane and Anfield. It is a journey which deserves a more satisfactory climax than his currently desperate experience. Of all the victims of Liverpool's bizarre season of politics and corporate doubt and off-field controversy, Keane is surely No 1. Steven Gerrard? For a little while at least, he has created his own world -- one he rules absolutely.